Rotting Bodies

Chapter Ten: We Feast Like Kings

(TW: This chapter contains talk of self harm, parental abuse and neglect, and abuse, so if you are uncomfortable with it you can skip it. And remember if you, or someone you know is struggling with this, it is okay to reach out for help, and you should reach out for help.)

The night went by without an incident. No infected, no fighting. MJ handed out the new-to-us bottle of vodka she found and we all had a couple drinks or two. By morning my head was hung in pain as we walked in the sun. I am no stranger to pain. Years of abuse and neglect from my mom and all of her abusive alcoholic boyfriends, foster care, hopping from school to school knowing that there's no point to making friends because I'll just end up leaving and it'll hurt. And when I thought I had a permanent home with a family member they kicked me out after seven years.

While living there though, I met these guys. My big goofball group of friends that make life worth living in these times. But I also met someone else, someone who introduced me to something that I have yet been able to give up. I don't want to think about them.

Let us go back in time a bit. Five years ago. Our first real feast and successful harvest since the outbreak. Keep in mind that by this time the government rounded everyone up (or tried to, they didn't care about little places like this. The government is dead now,) to try and keep the non infected population clean. That obviously didn't work.

We grouped all the tables in the cafeteria together. Even found a beautiful red fabric that we used as a tablecloth. Laughter flooded the place in high hopes and happiness. Excitement at our first successful harvest of peas, beans, potatoes, hell it was even the first time we managed to hunt a couple chickens. I'll never forget that day.

"What are you doing to that pea?" Ebie asks with a slightly judgmental look on her face.

I look down at my plate. I'm absent mindedly picking at this poor pea pod with my fork. "I don't know."

"I hope that when we start writing our own history books that that makes it in." Ebie continues eating her dinner without another comment.

I eat my vegetables first, tasting the pride and success in every bite. Then I go on to eat my portion of chicken (I got the breast meat. Ha ha.). Now, since this was a feast we were all to be civil and use knives to cut our chicken, and not pull it apart with our forks (like animals, as Mera says). I pick up my knife ready to cut a slice off of the breast when MJ (I think they drank a lot of wine at this point,) hits the table with laughter.

My knife drops. Lance looks over at me but I'm quick to cover up what had happened. I don't know how it happened, but I cut my finger when MJ hit the table. It wasn't a bad cut, nothing a bandage wouldn't fix, so I played it off as not a big deal. But to me it was. The sight of my own blood, the sting of the pain, it was a reminder of what I used to do, and almost mesmerized me into doing it again. I never spoke for the rest of dinner.

I leave dinner early and bandage up my finger before Lance and Ebie get home. It's not a big deal, but I don't want to remind them of how I used to be. It was a painful time, and after a while I almost became addicted to the feeling. Going numb and thinking that it was the only way to feel something, anything.

Lance comes home to find me in our room, standing in front of the mirror looking at my scars. My whole body, it seems, is marked by the ugly reminders of my past. I don't know how anyone could ever think of me as beautiful, when I look at myself and all I feel is disgusted.

"What are you doing?" Lance asks cautiously.

"I accidentally cut my finger at dinner." I look at a particularly long scar on my stomach. "I felt reminded of these."

"Oh."

I cover myself up in shame and curl up in bed. The nights that I kept Lance up with worry still haunt me, and will forever haunt me. They get into bed with me, holding me tightly to them. Slowly, I fell asleep next to him.

I come back from the past when Lance grabs my hand. The sun seems hotter on the days you're hung over.

"Okay guys!" Mera calls, "we have to pass through this town, and then another day's walk or so and we'll make it to the city! And according to the map, that's where the cure supposedly is!"

We all give each other exhausted glances and continue our journey that seems like it'll never stop.